Vaccines for Children Program
The Vaccines for Children Program (VFC) is a federally funded program in the United States providing no-cost vaccines to children who lack health insurance or who cannot otherwise afford the cost of the vaccination. The VFC program was created by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and is required to be a new entitlement of each state's Medicaid plan. The program was officially implemented in October 1994.[1]
History
From 1989 through 1991, a measles epidemic in the United States resulted in several tens of thousands of cases of measles and hundreds of deaths. Upon investigation, CDC found that more than half of the children who had measles had not been immunized, despite seeing a health care provider.[2]
In partial response to that epidemic, Congress passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) on August 10, 1993, creating the VFC Program. It became operational October 1, 1994 and is known as section 1928 of the Social Security Act, the VFC program is an entitlement for eligible children, age 18 and below.
Program
The VFC program is funded through an approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the funds are allocated to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC buys vaccines at a discount directly from manufacturers and distributes them to state health departments and certain local and territorial public health agencies. The agencies then redistribute the vaccines at no cost to those private physicians' offices and public health clinics that are registered as VFC program providers.[1]
Patient eligibility
Children and adolescents are eligible if it is before their 19th birthday and they meet one or more of the following criteria:[3]
- Medicaid-eligible
- Uninsured (lacking health insurance)
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Underinsured, that is, a child that is covered by some type of health insurance, but the insurance either does not cover any vaccines, covers only certain vaccines, or does cover some vaccines, but has a cap on the annual cost for vaccines.
- Children are eligible up through 18 years of age.
Covered vaccines
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) makes recommendations to the VFC program as to what are the most appropriate selection of vaccines and related agents for control of vaccine-preventable diseases in the civilian population of the United States.[4] VFC resolutions passed by the ACIP form the basis for VFC program policies on vaccine availability and usage. They may not necessarily match the general usage recommendations of the ACIP, but rather represent the rules that providers must follow for administering each specific vaccine under the VFC program.[5]
The following vaccines are included in the VFC Program:[6][7]
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References
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External links
- Children at Risk from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
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